Share this story

Terry Pratchett, one of the world's top fantasy authors and creator of the Discworld universe, has died at age 66. Reports note that Pratchett died at home surrounded by his family, with his cat sleeping on his bed.

Over on Terry Pratchett's Twitter feed, Rob Wilkins announced the author's passing in a beautifully poignant way—he tweeted a little scene between Pratchett and Death, one of the writer's most popular characters. As someone who has read the entirety of the Discworld series of books—multiple times in the case of the Death and Guards series—those tweets made my eyes well up.

Pratchett was diagnosed with a particularly nasty variant of Alzheimer's disease, posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), in 2007. In his latter years, he fought for the legalization of assisted suicide (though he didn't like that phrase). In an opinion piece for The Guardian, Pratchett argued that he wanted to die at a time of his choosing, "before the disease takes me over." In 2011, Pratchett presented a one-off documentary called Choosing to Die. In a statement published on Paul Kidby's site announcing the author's death, he died as a result of "succumbing to the final stages of the disease."

While I never met Terry Pratchett, he played an oddly large role in my development as a reader, writer, and nerd. When I was 12 or so, I found a battered copy of The Colour of Magic on a bookshelf at home. I was in the middle of my summer vacation and had nothing else to do, so I sat down and read it... and didn't like it at all. I put it back on the bookshelf and didn't read another Pratchett book until I was 15. Then, I was stuck at college after hours, waiting for my mother to pick me up, so I started reading random books from the library. As it turned out, the librarian was a huge Discworld fan, and so she'd acquired the entire series. Ook! I don't remember exactly which Discworld novel I picked up first, but I think it was Jingo.

I quickly got hooked, and the rest is history. For a period of about five years, the only books I read were based in the Discworld universe. To this day, despite reading them a half-dozen times, Reaper Man and Night Watch still make me cry like a baby. I played the Discworld MUD for quite a while, and the Discworld point-and-click video game isn't half bad. I have possibly even acted in some of the stage play adaptations by Stephen Briggs. (No, I didn't play Nobby; Vetinari is more my kind of guy.) As a writer, I still find myself unintentionally copying Pratchett's phrasing and jokes more often than I'd like. Pratchett's joint effort with Neil Gaiman on Good Omens also turned me onto another brilliant British author from my end of the woods in England.

You will be missed, Sir Terry Pratchett. You had a good run: Raising Steam, published in 2013, was the 40thDiscworld novel. The ever-reliable Wikipedia says he sold 85 million books translated into 37 languages—and as the urban legend goes, Pratchett was at one time the most shop-lifted author in the UK.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes—fittingly, from one of Death's most formative novels, Reaper Man:

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”

Promoted Comments

Thank you for a nice tribure, Sebastian, Sir Terry will be missed but his legacy to us sits in our bookcases, mine are all hardcovers and signed by him and they are treasured (except for the last two, Sir Terry wasnt able to do many signings anymore ), and as he wrote "A man is not truly dead while his name is still spoken".

I've spent the last 17 Boxing Day nights reading the latest Discworld book.

Whilst the obituaries will be full of talk about Discworld, perhaps rightly, his children's works were also excellent. He had a capacity for understanding the British teenager that was rivalled only by Sue Townsend, and I hope that Only You Can Save Mankind and Johnny & The Bomb continue to comfort and inspire teenagers in the same way they did me for decades to come.

PTerry, along with Douglas Adams, shaped my world view and my sense of humour to a greater degree than I can express.

So long, Terry. I hope we're both wrong about what happens to you now.

While I've never read a Discworld novel, this was far too soon for such a prolific writer. To think there are forty to get through...? I have a lot of catching up to do. It's only a fair tribute :'(

The Discworld series is such that it's easy to pick a point of entry. The first four books are pretty rough, but to start out with I recommend:

Small Gods (a standalone, and one of my favorite books ever)Guards! Guards! (First of the City Watch subseries)Wyrd Sisters (The tiny kingdom of Lancre, and the Witches)

But frankly, you can pretty much start anywhere that looks interesting to you and then fill in.

Ugh. This news is hitting me very hard.

“ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.

Death took a step backwards.

It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features.

Death glanced sideways at the servants.

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?”

I discovered Terry Pratchett in the mid-1990s in my senior year of high school. The class was reading The Great Gatsby and I decided Soul Music was a much more interesting novel. Almost 20 years later I've realized my education was made more complete by reading Discworld instead of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, re-created anew. Therefore, he understood, there is, in truth, no Past, only a memory of the Past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it."Terry Pratchett - Thief of Time

Terry Pratchett wasn't just a great author, he was one of the pioneers of Internet-driven interaction with fans.

"Pterry" frequented the alt.fan.pratchett usenet group for many, many years, answering fan questions, and generally interacting with the community. It was always a thrill when he replied to one of your posts with a witty quip. His posting on the group was, at times, prolific.

That interaction, dating back to 1992, really is unmatched by any author I'm aware of.

Back when I first got an internet connection, I'd make sure I set aside time at least once a week to dial in, fire up my newsreader, and check if Terry had made any new posts on the group. There was a good chance I'd then spend an hour reading through the threads he was actively posting in.

Share this story

Sebastian Anthony
Sebastian is the editor of Ars Technica UK. He usually writes about low-level hardware, software, and transport, but it is emerging science and the future of technology that really get him excited. Emailsebastian@arstechnica.co.uk//Twitter@mrseb

Thank you for a nice tribure, Sebastian, Sir Terry will be missed but his legacy to us sits in our bookcases, mine are all hardcovers and signed by him and they are treasured (except for the last two, Sir Terry wasnt able to do many signings anymore ), and as he wrote "A man is not truly dead while his name is still spoken".

-he wanted to die. He was losing himself. I hope he went out with the spark still intact.

-they won't be able to publish Discworld novels under his name. Hypothetically. The last couple were sub-par, and I prefer to believe (and there's some evidence, too) that they were ghostwritten, rather than that Sir Pratchett had lost that previously-mentioned spark.

-he wanted to die. He was losing himself. I hope he went out with the spark still intact.

-they won't be able to publish Discworld novels under his name. Hypothetically. The last couple were sub-par, and I prefer to believe (and there's some evidence, too) that they were ghostwritten, rather than that Sir Pratchett had lost that previously-mentioned spark.

Sir Terry has said that his daughter, Rihanna, will continue his Discworld books when he is gone dont know if thats still true, though.

While I've never read a Discworld novel, this was far too soon for such a prolific writer. To think there are forty to get through...? I have a lot of catching up to do. It's only a fair tribute :'(

The Discworld series is such that it's easy to pick a point of entry. The first four books are pretty rough, but to start out with I recommend:

Small Gods (a standalone, and one of my favorite books ever)Guards! Guards! (First of the City Watch subseries)Wyrd Sisters (The tiny kingdom of Lancre, and the Witches)

But frankly, you can pretty much start anywhere that looks interesting to you and then fill in.

Ugh. This news is hitting me very hard.

“ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.

Death took a step backwards.

It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features.

Death glanced sideways at the servants.

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?”

I've got a few of the Kirby covers from various connections I made before a lot of the books were republished in the US. But most of the US covers are bland (at best)

Agreed. I travel a lot, so some of my collection was picked-up in the US, and it's not the same. Kirby's covers are an essential part of the experience. You see something new each time you view his covers.

Terry will be missed. He had a gift for creating living breathing characters. Shit, I hate that we now have to refer to him in past tense. Binky, give him a lift back home.

While I've never read a Discworld novel, this was far too soon for such a prolific writer. To think there are forty to get through...? I have a lot of catching up to do. It's only a fair tribute :'(

There's a bit of discussion about what book you should start with - It isn't a simple decision...

But very well worth the time.

I always recommend people start with Guards! Guards! -- and then, probably just do it in chronological order. Some of the early books can be a bit rough though, so I think it can be wise to hold off on those sometimes.

I guess doing the entire Guards series is a pretty good way to start, too. Vimes ftw!

I always recommend people start with Guards! Guards! -- and then, probably just do it in chronological order. Some of the early books can be a bit rough though, so I think it can be wise to hold off on those sometimes.

I guess doing the entire Guards series is a pretty good way to start, too. Vimes ftw!

I would read in the published order. its pretty amazing that Ankh Morpork in Colour of Magic was a medieval setting to the later novels Victoria era settings.

Re: the final Discworld books, Terry was open about the fact that he couldn't sit down and bang out prose with his own hands anymore. His assistant Rob Wilkins took dictation for much of that work, and it's not unreasonable to assume that led to a more collaborative process. Plus he did have Alzheimer's. Either way, his work was definitely more single-mindedly focused in those last few books.

-he wanted to die. He was losing himself. I hope he went out with the spark still intact.

-they won't be able to publish Discworld novels under his name. Hypothetically. The last couple were sub-par, and I prefer to believe (and there's some evidence, too) that they were ghostwritten, rather than that Sir Pratchett had lost that previously-mentioned spark.

Really? I always put it down to his illness.

The last couple of books were a struggle, so that the last two I still havn't really read all the way through, they just didn't grip me.

I like to think when I take that journey myself, I have been preceded by the perfect man to tell me whether it is elephants all the way down, or if it is a turtle as he posited. RIP thanks for all the guffaws.

The last couple were sub-par, and I prefer to believe (and there's some evidence, too) that they were ghostwritten, rather than that Sir Pratchett had lost that previously-mentioned spark.

He indeed did not "write" them. He dictated them to a software program and then someone (rumoured to be his daughter Rhianna) edited them. He had trouble speaking so things probably didn't come out the way they were formed in his ehad.

A lot of the charm of his writing was probably lost through this process.